1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
The sharing of information among users of social networks has developed into a worldwide phenomenon, supported by various different social network facilities. Millions of text, picture, video and audio communications are sent and received on a daily basis among users of such networks. Many users enjoy sharing jokes and other humorous material with their social network contacts.
Conventionally, a user shares humorous material with social network contacts in a native format or by a link to a source, such as a web page. Advances in social networks have allowed not only text, but pictures, hypertext links and even embedded videos to exist within a user interface of a social network facility so as to enhance the overall user experience of the social network.
Presently, a user who has a funny item, such as a joke, to share with others does not have a way to do so readily other than by plain text. Now that social network interfaces support audio, pictures, animation and video, plain text messages tend to not be as noticed by other users. Numerous web sites allow end users to easily create their own comic strips, which allow text to be provided with additional visual context, but the strips thus created are not well adapted to be embedded within social network interfaces. Also lacking is the ability to directly create and share jokes as comic strips directly from the social network websites, thus the users today must go to a different website to create any strips they need and then import such creations into their social network websites.
As a result of these challenges, there remains a need for a system to allow users of social networks and other electronic communication systems to readily create and read comic strips directly from the corresponding social network's user interface.